Concerned friends and fellow artists say the 52-year-old Chinese-born Australian, a former soldier and Tiananmen Square protester, was taken away on Sunday night from his home in Songzhuang, an art colony on the eastern fringe of Beijing.

Guo sent two short text messages to friends on Sunday night saying he he had been taken away by police.

Chinese-Australian artist Guo Jian was detained on Sunday night from his home on the eastern fringes of Beijing. Photo: http://guojianart.com/

One friend, artist consultant Melanie Wang, said she was able to reach Guo on the phone shortly afterward. Guo said police had told him he would be released in 15 days and that he was being taken to a detention centre.

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“I asked if he needed any clothes, or any money, he said ‘not at the moment’,” Wang said.

Guo, who featured on the ABC’s current affairs panel show Q&A when it was filmed in Shanghai in April, could not be reached on Monday.

New work: Guo Jian's piece "Tiananmen Square", which he discussed in an interview prior to his detention. Photo: supplied

"The Australian Embassy in Beijing has contacted Chinese authorities to seek further information on the reported detention of Mr Guo Jian and to underline our strong interest in the matter,” a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said. “The Australian Government stands ready to extend all possible consular assistance to Mr Guo."

Friends of Guo believe he was taken in by authorities because of an interview with the Financial Times, where he revealed he had created an artwork to privately commemorate the June 4 anniversary, covering a large diorama of Tiananmen Square with 160 kilograms of minced meat.

A native of south-western Guizhou province, Guo was 17 when he joined the People’s Liberation Army and was sent to the front during the brief Sino-Vietnamese war, although he never saw combat.

“The army is regarded as a loveable institution. But at Tiananmen I realised it’s not, they will kill you if ordered to. And how do they build up this machine? In part, they use women,” Guo told the Financial Times. “From these army images I want people to see how this violent culture not only existed before but is still strong in China.”

In his interview, he recalled in detail his memories of the protests of 1989, including his decision to join in a student hunger strike – starving himself for seven days before being taken to hospital.

The Chinese army was called in to break up the pro-democracy student demonstrations on June 4, 1989, with estimates of deaths ranging from the hundreds to the thousands.

“I didn’t believe it, even though I had been a soldier,” Guo said. “In the army I had never seen that sort of violence. Then I saw the tracers and people falling around me – they were just gone. I suddenly realised, s---, this was war.”

Across China, rights groups say more than 50 people, including activists, lawyers, journalists and intellectuals have been arrested, detained or “disappeared” in recent weeks because of their intention to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Among the most high-profile include rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, academic Xu Youyu, and journalist Gao Yu. Xin Jian, a news researcher for Japanese news outlet Nikkei, has also been detained.

Many of these people have been charged with crimes that carry jail sentences of several years, including “picking quarrels and provoking troubles”.

Central Beijing is also swarming with heavily armoured police vehicles and paramilitary forces, while security checks at some major subway stations have been tightened in part because of heightened concerns of a recent wave of domestic terror attacks stemming from the volatile far-western region of Xinjiang.